Future Applications of Wind Power For Maritime Propulsion

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The Vindskip concept from Lade AS is an interesting take on the idea of wind power for modern vessels.
 
Interesting indeed ! What makes me wonder is, how the underwater hull would look like. Contrary to conventional
sailing ships,obviously remarkable weights are positioned on the top of a very high construction. I would expect
severe stability problems, if the ship isn't built like an iceberg.
 
Orionblamblam said:
Matej said:
Fight to the death but without damaging the nature!
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This isn't "anti-French," but the proper military response to such an "eco-friendly" silly little warship is a nuclear-tipped anti-ship missile. Not a big nuke, mind, but an itty-bitty one... big enough to blast the ship to flinders, but small enough to be horribly inefficient and dirty.
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Nukes appear to be your answer to every problem.

That, or develop a truly stealthy nuclear submarine that attacks its enemies by sneaking up underneath, using an ROV to silently entangle or otherwise disable the enemies primarly propulsion system, then lash onto the enemy with a good, stout cable... then release a few hundred tons of high-grade oil. Form a good slick around the enemy ship, then send up a magnesium flare. And then keep releasing petroleum, propare, gasoline, napalm, whatever. Burn it to the waterline with the nastiest, blackest burnables available.

Then send photos to Greenpeace and *dare* them to come and pester your Navy...
;D
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Here is an interesting point. If a ship is powered by the wind, effectively the only "noise" that eminates from it is that of the hull moving through the water. Such a ship would be a very effective ASW ship IMO.

Reducing fuel usage while good for the environment has a much better aspect for naval operations. It extends the range and loiter times as has been suggested. Utilising a kite or a sail while cruising means that a ship can carry less fuel, so making it lighter and enable less powerful engines to be used when it isn't using the wind, such as when in combat.

Another useful function for a kite might be to carry aloft radar aerials enabling the radar "horizon" to be substantially increased. Utilising a "look down" radar it would also make spotting incoming missiles much easier, as well.
 
With increasing automation reducing crews very long endurance early warning / electronic warfare / patrol ships seem quite possible. Although one would expect a mixture of propulsion techniques (and possibly smaller independent sensor platforms - sail power unmanned sensor drones anyone?)
 
https://gcaptain.com/project-to-test-feasibility-of-sail-powered-bulk-carrier/
 
Rotorship: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotor_ship

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDyBrSW1_Og


Turbosail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbosail

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB4R__kwLIQ
 
Kadija_Man said:
Here is an interesting point. If a ship is powered by the wind, effectively the only "noise" that eminates from it is that of the hull moving through the water. Such a ship would be a very effective ASW ship IMO.
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Yes and no.
Modern ASW requires low frequency active sonar because just listening doesn't find the super-quiet modern subs.
The ASW ship itself doesn't necessarily emit sonar pulses itself, but its helicopters or other ships & boats need to. And those LF sound waves will hit the ASW ship and be reflected, so there's the echo problem anyway.

Moreover, sails would be spotted by electro-optical periscopes from afar (just as high radar masts, but more easily so). An E/O periscope does a 360° digital image in a second or two, total exposure to radar is maybe 2...4 seconds. Afterwards the officers look at the digital imagery.

Last but not least; the warship needs a lot of electricity for operation, and that as well as onboard equipment will cause noise. Those noises could be shut down for a couple hours, but not all the time.
 
I absolutely believe that a combination of sail and (possibly solar electric) motor power will be used to reduce the energy and pollution costs of shipping. That said, I suspect that a successful concept will be designed from the ground up for that power combination, not just have sails stuck on a big ship. Take a look at my post from a few years ago about Phil Bolger's "Sir Joseph Banks" design for a hint of what that might look like---a simple rig, easily and quickly reefed, with a minimum number of parts and designed for efficient use of *both* sail and power simultaneously, varying the proportions as conditions warrant.

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,17717.msg176265.html#msg176265
 

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Clipper ships were doing in the high teens and even hit 20 mph in the late 1800s and didn't have competition until the advent of steam. Steam didn't catch up for a long time because they were hindered by the amount of coal they had to carry that took up cargo space that a sailing ship didn't have to give up for coal.

Modern racing monohulls have done well over 20 mph there are now hydrofoils that have gone much faster to over 50 mph. The sails don't necessarily need to be the primary propulsion source, but they can certainly be used as an assist to capture some of the wind energy that is always passing by. Large ships have engines the size of buildings and even a couple of percent reduction in fuel consumption because the sails are working gives the ship that much more range between fuel stops.

I heard on the radio today that windpower leases off Massachusetts went for triple the price that oil leases have gone for showing a high anticipation of where the new money in energy is anticipated to come from.
 
I recall seeing studies by Glasgow University Naval Architecture Dept. on wind power back in the late 70's/early '80's, a few reached small boat mock up stage too (a few of those were in storage at Irvine Maritime Museum, certainly the rotor duct and SWATH., im unsure as to current disposition tho) might be worth a look through the literature?
 
Rotor ships, could also use the rotating 'sail' to drive props.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotor_ship
 
Diesel-electric propulsion seems like an obvious avenue to pursue for a hybrid ship propulsion system. Perhaps multiple diesel generators providing power to two electric motors that each turn a propeller, and stowable vertical wind turbines to allow you to shut down one or more of the generators when conditions permit or fold them down during a storm.
 
johngeo said:
Will they ever get off the drawing board?

What's your thinking?

www.huffingtonpost.com

Wind-Powered Cargo Ships

Getting a wind-powered cargo vessel off the drawing board will not be easy. Nevertheless, we feel nothing but admiration for the men and women who are tr...
www.huffingtonpost.com www.huffingtonpost.com

www.nytimes.com

Designers Set Sail, Turning to Wind to Help Power Cargo Ships (Published 2012)

To reduce emissions and conserve expensive fossil fuels, cargo ship designers are turning to the oldest source of power there is: the wind.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
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they did years ago with walker wing sails they have been in asia for years only a 10% fuel savings
there is also a wing sail powered ferry and many other applications like the zepher trimarans
 
Old-style sailing ships were ridiculously labour-intensive, so modern sailing ships will need hydraulic reefing systems, etc. We are not sure if modern auto-pilots are sophisticated to steer sailing ships across major oceans. Sail-handling has always been perceived as more of an art than a science.
 
riggerrob said:
Old-style sailing ships were ridiculously labour-intensive, so modern sailing ships will need hydraulic reefing systems, etc. We are not sure if modern auto-pilots are sophisticated to steer sailing ships across major oceans. Sail-handling has always been perceived as more of an art than a science.
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I don't think that this was true of the late commercial ships, especially the steel-masted vessels that carried nitrates around Cape Horn, like Preussen and Potosi. They were huge bulk carriers, designed for economy, crew safety, and minimal manning costs. They carried a minimum number of able seamen and a large number of paying boy cadets. The heavy lifting that was formerly done by man power was done by steam engines. These vessels were killed off by collisions with steam vessels that ignored the rights of way and by the World Wars, not by economics as such.
 
There is also the problem of regulation: in many countries that pretend to be at the tip of the spear in term of ecological norms, cargo and large ships are still allowed to burn cheaper unrefined fuel, massively contributing to global warming.
When that will go away, a new look down to cost might help seeing sailing or assisted sailing as economically advantageous.
 
Stena Bulk have revealed a prototype design with 2 Flettner Rotors to assist LNG and solar panel power
www.marinelink.com

Stena Bulk Presents Fuel-efficient Tanker Prototype

Swedish shipowner Stena Bulk unveiled a prototype of its next-generation environmentally friendly product and chemical tanker, the IMOFlexMAX…
www.marinelink.com www.marinelink.com

There has already been some experimentation with Maersk
en.wikipedia.org

Rotor ship - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
With the 'potential' banning of the sale of new diesel car, vans and lorries by 2030, what is the likely story with regards to ships? I know that there is a current movement to use LNG on cruise ships and there are experiments with a fuel refined for algae and/or seaweed, what other options are there?

Also is marine diesel dirtier that regular diesel?
 
Very much dirtier. Many marine diesel engines still run on Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO), which in its most noxious form is tar-like. Banned for use in the Antarctic, Arctic ban proposed.

269px-Residual_fuel_oil.JPG
 
JohnR said:
With the 'potential' banning of the sale of new diesel car, vans and lorries by 2030, what is the likely story with regards to ships? I know that there is a current movement to use LNG on cruise ships and there are experiments with a fuel refined for algae and/or seaweed, what other options are there?

Also is marine diesel dirtier that regular diesel?
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Design is underway for a sail-powered merchant vessel (a car carrier):
http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.cnn.com%2Fcnnnext%2Fdam%2Fassets%2F201015180344-oceanbird-image-wallenius-marine-3.jpg


Shorter term than that, the current generation of container carriers (Maersk triple-E) has a much lower design speed than its predecessors.

Alternative power includes hybrid or electric (for short-haul services such as ferries) and synthetic fuel (inefficient conversion processes become less of an issue if you have abundant solar or wind power to run the process). Most of the focus is on low-carbon fuels.
 
I used to work on cruise ships, two of them brand new when we had been in port all day, and the engines were brought on line for departure, they used to be like shit mortars as as that had built up on the uptakes over the day were blow out. On a bad day if the wind was blowing in the wrong direction it would land in the swimming pools like an very fine oil slick.
 
Maybe this is the prototype Type-32 mentioned by Bo Jo in his budget increase speach.
 

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This would be more like it, there has to be a special arms safe cabinet though, for the Swiss army knife (Safety version with no blades).
 

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Hobbes: Why use utterly unenvironmental solar/wind power (especially wind power plants occupy huge amounts of land and pose significant danger to birds and are ugly eye-pollution) to produce low-carbon fuels when much more sensible option, nuclear power exists? I know nothing more perverse than climate alarmists who oppose nuclear power. They should be hunted to extinction.
 
JohnR said:
With the 'potential' banning of the sale of new diesel car, vans and lorries by 2030, what is the likely story with regards to ships? I know that there is a current movement to use LNG on cruise ships and there are experiments with a fuel refined for algae and/or seaweed, what other options are there?

Also is marine diesel dirtier that regular diesel?
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This is a criminal and despotic regime. You can't force people to buy what they don't want. I don't want a Blade Runner-style future. And please, enough of this vulgar environmentalism of problematic Swedish teenagers. The only ecological cars are those stopped at the parking lots.
 
Pasoleati said:
Hobbes: Why use utterly unenvironmental solar/wind power (especially wind power plants occupy huge amounts of land and pose significant danger to birds and are ugly eye-pollution) to produce low-carbon fuels when much more sensible option, nuclear power exists? I know nothing more perverse than climate alarmists who oppose nuclear power. They should be hunted to extinction.
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You're assuming something I never said. I'm not opposed to nuclear power in principle, but I'm pragmatic enough to see that the world isn't headed to a future where a large percentage of power is produced by nuclear plants.
 
Hobbes said:
I'm not opposed to nuclear power in principle, but I'm pragmatic enough to see that the world isn't headed to a future where a large percentage of power is produced by nuclear plants.
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You may end up being surprised.
 

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